Reefer containers grow at expense of breakbulk ships

Drewry said capacity for refrigerated cargo on containerships fleets is expected to increase by 22 percent over the next five years at the expense of a declining world fleet of specialized breakbulk reefer ships.
In its recently published Reefer Shipping Market Annual Review & Forecast, Drewry said reefer box capacity is expected to grow from 1.6 million FEU slots in 2013 to 1.9 million slots in 2018. However, this fleet growth is not expected to adversely impact vessel utilization levels thanks to strong cargo growth.
Reefer container volumes are forecast by Drewry to rise by 20.5 million tons over this period — 16.5 million tons by organic growth and 4 million tons at the expense of the shrinking specialized reefer industry.
However, Drewry notes that today, the breakbulk specialized reefer fleet, while providing just 7 percent of overall capacity, carried almost 28 percent of perishable reefer cargo last year.
“As a result of the expected cargo growth, reefer container slot utilization levels will be unchanged in 2015 and only marginally lower thereafter,” said Kevin Harding, the report editor. “Meanwhile, the specialized reefer sector is forecast to shrink further as a result of scrapping and a virtually empty order book.”